Heritage
by Settiai
Summary: When Cordelia discovers Doyle's demon heritage before the Powers planned for her too, all of their carefully laid plans go up in smoke. :: Cordelia/Doyle


Title: Heritage

Author: Settiai

Disclaimer: "Angel" and other related characters are all properties of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and other related corporations. No infringement is intended. This story, such as it is, was written as a sign of respect and love for the characters, the show, and their creator. I claim no ownership of the aforementioned show and characters.

Rating: PG-13

Explanation: This is my story for the Doyle/Cordelia Ficathon on LiveJournal, and it was written for mireille719.

Summary: When Cordelia discovers Doyle's demon heritage before the Powers planned for her too, all of their carefully laid plans go up in smoke.

Feedback: Comments and helpful criticisms are always appreciated.

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_From the beginning, the higher powers of the universe took it upon themselves to "meddle" in the affairs of lower beings. Humans, demons… they were merely the pawns in a complicated game, and the world they called Earth was no more than a tiny playing field in the eyes of the omnipotent entities._

They took sides against each other millennia earlier, some choosing "good" and some deciding that "evil" fit them more closely. A few, however, chose a third side… and "neutral" side, for lack of a better term.

As Good and Evil battled each other, these "neutral" beings were the ones who kept the game running. If one side seemed about to win, they would throw a surprise into the mix in order to postpone the victory.

When it seemed as if Evil were to be the victor, they caused cataclysmic events to take place on the Earth… events that would bring about the end of the true reign of demons. But as time went by, Good seemed to be taking more and more ground, and they were then forced to intercede on Evil's behalf.

Therefore lesser demons, which would walk the Earth for countless centuries to come, were born, and in time the Slayer was created to keep their strength in check. Over the centuries, more and more pawns were added to the game… some for the side of Good and some for the side of Evil. Powers of great magnitude were bestowed upon both sides, and each of them chose vessels with whom to communicate directly with their chosen champions.

The plans were laid out perfectly… death would bring life, and life would bring death. If a pawn needed to be sacrificed for the greater good of the game, then so it was. The mortals were almost completely unaware of their being mere pawns in the hands of giants, just as it had been for ages past.

But every so often, one of the pawns acted out on its own. In the long history of the Earth, the carefully laid plans of the higher beings were, every so often, pushed aside by the unexpected actions of one of the mortal creatures they used in their games.

And when that happened, no one ever knew what to expect next.

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"I'm going to kill him," Cordelia muttered quietly under her breath, "and then I'm going to find a way to bring him back to life so that I can kill him again."

She let out a sigh as she finally caught sight of her destination, and after a second or two she reluctantly pulled the cheap rental car she was driving over to the side of the street. Ignoring the graffiti-covered "No Parking" signs that everyone else seemed to have overlooked as well, she reluctantly stepped out of the vehicle.

Barely holding back a shudder as she walked up to the decrepit-looking building, she glanced up at the flashing neon lights over the door and sighed. "Yeah, this was exactly how I wanted to spend my night," she said softly, "picking up a loser at a sleazy bar."

Silently praying that no one would even bother to look at her I.D., Cordelia unenthusiastically stepped through the door. No one even looked her way when she entered, though that was probably because most of the people were either focused entire on their drinking or apparently unconscious. Barely hiding the disgust she was feeling, she let her gaze drift around the dimly lit room. After a few seconds of searching, she caught sight of who she was looking for.

Cordelia didn't even bother to hide her irritation as she made her way over to the bar, and her eyes were flashing with aggravation as she sat down next to the man whose head was lying on the bar in front of him. "Doyle, are you sober enough to at least know who I am?" she asked with a sigh.

"I wouldn't think so," an unfamiliar voice to her right suddenly said, and she quickly glanced over to find herself staring into the face of the bartender. "He probably doesn't even know who he is."

Cordelia nodded in agreement as she looked over at Doyle one more time before turning back to the man beside her. "Are you the one who called the office?" she asked curiously.

The bartended nodded and then jerked his head in Doyle's direction. "After his sixth or seventh drink, it was pretty obvious that he wouldn't be going home without some help," he explained. "It's just lucky that he had one of your business cards on him and someone was there to answer the phone."

"Really lucky, considering the fact that the only reason I was there is because I had left my purse," she muttered, drawing a grin from the bartender. After a moment or two, however, she forced her mind back to the problem at hand.

"How much does he owe you?" she asked quietly, hoping that her voice sounded more confident than she was feeling.

"Forty bucks or so," the bartender replied with a shrug.

Cordelia blinked, and her eyes drifted over to the semi-unconscious man slumped down on the bar. "Damn it, Doyle," she muttered irritably before reaching into her pocket and grabbing the money that Angel had practically thrown at her with a quick warning of "only for emergencies" before heading out for Sunnydale.

"Well, I guess this counts as an emergency," she said with a wry grin as she handed the man a fifty dollar bill. "Will this work?"

The bartender nodded, but he didn't offer to give her any change -- not that she had expected him to. From the look on his face, she felt that it was safe to assume that he had been generous when he had said that Doyle only owed him forty dollars.

After a few seconds, Cordelia glanced back over at Doyle. He was still slumped down in a state of near-unconsciousness, and it was obvious that he would be like that for some time to come. With a sigh, she turned back to the bartender.

"Is there someone who could help me get him to my car?" she asked reluctantly.

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"Hey Dennis, can you get me a cold compress?" Cordelia called out as stumbled into her apartment, practically dragging Doyle over to her couch. "I found a drunk idiot who's going to owe me big time when he's sober again."

She let Doyle rather ungracefully drop down on the couch, but after a few seconds she couldn't help but sigh and kneel down beside him. "You're **so **going to owe me," she whispered as she forced him out of his jacket and shoes.

Just as she had finished, the cold compress she had asked for came floating over to her. "Thanks for the help, Dennis" she said with a smile before laying the compress on Doyle's head. He stirred slightly when she did so, and for just a moment Cordelia couldn't help but notice that he looked pretty cute laying there, like a little boy taking a nap…

"That's it," she said suddenly, shaking her head emphatically, "I definitely need to get some sleep. When I start thinking of Doyle as cute, it's definitely a sign of exhaustion. I learned my lesson with Xander, and there's no way I'm going through that again."

Exhaustion. Right. There couldn't be any other explanation.

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Cordelia woke up to the sound of moaning, and it took her memory a few seconds to catch up with her. As soon as it did, however, the sound she was hearing suddenly made sense. Muttering a few curses under her breath as she caught sight of the time, she reluctantly rolled out of bed and headed for the living room.

"Please tell me that you aren't going to get sick," she said as she stepped through the door, her eyes not even glancing in the direction of the couch as she spoke. "Because if you are, I'll kill you right now and not even wait until you're over the hangover."

The moaning sound stopped for a second as Doyle somehow managed to pull himself up into what resembled a sitting position so that he could glance in her direction. "Cordelia?" he asked blearily, blinking a few times in confusion.

"The bartender at the sleazy hellhole of a bar called the office to see if someone could come pick up a drunk loser who had pretty much passed out into his own drink," she said in answer to his unspoken question.

"Oh," Doyle replied weakly as comprehension dawned on his face. His eyes moved hesitantly over the room, and there was a surprised tone in his voice when he spoke again. "You brought me to your place?"

"What?" Cordelia asked, rolling her eyes as she did so, "you expected me to go anywhere near where you live after dark? Please, I'm not suicidal."

Doyle managed a feeble grin before he moaned again and let his head fall back down against her couch. "I didn't mean for you to come and get me," he muttered softly, his voice surprisingly bitter.

"You were planning on just spending the night passed out in a dingy L.A. bar?" Cordelia asked, raising an eyebrow. "Maybe you're the suicidal one."

Doyle turned away from her, and Cordelia felt a brief pang of pity run through her heart. "Did seeing Harry again really hurt you that much?" she questioned him softly.

Though he didn't glance back at her, Doyle replied to her question after a second or two. "What makes you think that this was about Harry?"

"Because I'm not stupid," Cordelia retorted rather loudly, and she couldn't help but smile as Doyle let out another moan. "And you better stop moaning, because it's your own fault that you have a hangover and pity isn't something you're going to be getting from me."

"I wouldn't expect anything else from you," Doyle replied, a hint of a smile tugging at his lips as he turned back to face her.

A comfortable silence filled the room for a second before Cordelia coughed quietly. "So," she said hesitantly, "do you want to tell me what you were thinking?"

"Hell if I know," Doyle answered with a shrug, a nauseous expression briefly appearing on his face before he could hide it.

Cordelia rolled her eyes before leaning over and grabbing the no-longer cold compress that had fallen to the floor sometime during the night. "Dennis, could you get this cold again?" she called out, and moments later the compress lifted out of her hand and seemingly floated toward the kitchen.

"Almost seeing your ex-wife get married must have hurt a lot," she said after a moment of two.

"Yeah," Doyle finally mumbled, "it did. I've known for almost four years now that it was over between us… but it still hurts."

"You still love her though," Cordelia whispered quietly. "Even I can see that."

"That doesn't mean anything," he replied after a moment of silence, "but I'm sure that you know that."

Though she wasn't entirely certain as to what the expression on his face meant, Cordelia could see the raw emotions that he was trying desperately to hide.

"Why did the two of you split up?" she asked quietly as she unconsciously reached out to lay her hand on his.

"I turned twenty-one," he muttered softly, "and everything changed."

"And what happened when you turned twenty-one?" Cordelia asked after a moment or two, her gaze focusing immediately on the guarded look that had suddenly appeared in Doyle's eyes. "And I want the truth."

There was a few seconds of silence as he seemed to be wrestling with his own inner demons, but after awhile he seemed to make his decision. His face hardened slightly as he met her gaze, resolve flashing in his eyes momentarily.

"I found out that I was half-demon," Doyle blurted out in a rush, his face automatically turning away from Cordelia as he did so, "thanks to the bastard of a father that I never even met."

He expected her to let out a loud exclamation, to berate him for not telling him, to tell him that she was disgusted, to… do something.

But the room remained silent.

After a few moments, Doyle reluctantly turned his face back toward Cordelia. She was still sitting there, except now her face was completely blank. "Cordelia?" he questioned her softly.

"Does Angel know?" Cordelia asked quietly after another few seconds had passed, her voice surprisingly calm as she spoke.

Doyle nodded after a moment's hesitation, but his eyes were warily focused on her. "Yeah, he knew from the first day."

Cordelia looked away from him for a few seconds, and when she glanced back there was a hurt expression on her face. "Why didn't you tell me?" she asked quietly.

"Come on, Cordy, why do you think I didn't tell you?" he asked in return, his voice gaining a bitter tone as he continued on. "You've made it clear from the start that you hate demons. Even Angel, at times. Hell, you probably wouldn't have bother going to pick me up from that hellhole of a bar if you had known. Isn't that right?"

Cordelia stared at him for a moment, the hurt look on her face turning into anger in seconds. Without saying a word, she suddenly leaned in and pressed her lips against his. Doyle blinked in surprise as she pulled away just as abruptly, and his jaw dropped for just a second before she smiled sweetly.

"You're an idiot," she said with a smile. "Did you really think that it would bother me that much? I mean, you're already way done on my list thanks to the smoking, the drinking, and the utter lack of fashion sense… not to mention the fact that you have even less money than I do at the moment."

Doyle merely gaped at her for a few more seconds.

"Will you ask me out to dinner already?" she asked with an irritated sigh.

After what seemed like ages, Doyle managed to find his voice once more. His mouth twisted into a grin as he met her eyes. "Cordelia, would you like to go out to dinner?"

"I thought you'd never ask," she replied with a smile.

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_It was unexpected, but each side made the best of the situation that was now laid before them. Instead of having to let one of their more powerful pawns be sacrificed, Good was able to spare the mortal being's life. Evil's plans were pushed to the side then, because without the death of the pawn known as Allen Francis Doyle, the pawn known as Cordelia Chase would not be placed into a position that would allow them access to her._

Which was exactly what the newest "neutral" being had wanted.

A smile appeared on the face of the being that had once, in another life, been just another pawn in the Powers' game. She had risen above that existence, however, only to find herself in the position to… interfere. Who would have known that changing one tiny detail -- making one mortal woman leave her purse in the right place at the right time -- could possibly rewrite the future of an entire world?

In the world she had known, the phone had remained unanswered. A young man had spent the night passed out in a bar, awakening the next morning with a hangover and a guilty conscious. The young woman who could have been his rescuer spent the night alone, unaware that in a few short weeks her life would change forever because of the death of someone she considered a friend.

But in this world, it would be different. As life went on in the new mortal realm, the changes that had been brought about in it obvious to only a select few, the entity that had once been known as Cordelia Chase smiled in victory.


End file.
